ALL HAIL CHIEF THE TO

by Nicky Godding, Editor-in-Chief

The average age of a British company is around eight and a half years, so if you’re tantalizingly close towards 100 years in business, as with the Cullimore Group of Companies, you should be very, very proud.

And as the third generation leading this Gloucestershire business, 42-year-old Moreton Cullimore is already looking to 2027 for the mother of all centenary celebration parties.

But this is a sector which in the last three years alone has had to tackle Brexit, supply chain shortages and Covid, and with the recent off-the-scale fuel prices rises and the challenges brought on by the Ukraine war, nothing can be taken for granted, and Moreton doesn’t, although he knows it’s a lot to shoulder.

However, this doesn’t faze the man whose nickname has been Chief since he was a teenager. He may have got the name because he’s a big man with a big personality, but it’s also clear that he takes his responsibilities seriously, and others look up to him.

The business, first established in 1927 as a road haulage company by Moreton’s grandfather, now quarries aggregates, manufactures ready-mix concrete, farms and has recently set up a new welding shop. The Group employs around 100 people and turns over around £14 million annually.

The Cullimore Group will be familiar to anyone living in and around Gloucestershire, or just over the county’s borders and its 60 or so green and gold liveried lorries are on the roads every day of the year.

It also owns thousands of acres of land across the region, most notably at the Cotswold Water Park where it has quarried for many years, as well as land near Stroud which it farms and at Tewkesbury where it is currently applying for planning permission to quarry an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of high-quality aggregate material at Bow Farm.

Properly managed quarries can enhance communities

And yes, that’s causing Moreton some local grief. But as much as those living near the site might not like to hear it, quarrying is a necessary raw material for modern life. If you want new homes, roads – anything that involves concrete, drainage, water filtration and sewage, then you’ll need aggregate dug out of the ground, and it’s environmentally better, and more costeffective, to quarry it locally than truck it in from overseas.

Properly managed quarries can enhance community amenities. Moreton, who took over as managing director of Cullimore Group when his father retired a few years ago, can point to the company’s management of its quarries at the Cotswold Water Park over the last couple of decades.

He said: “Once quarrying is complete at a site, we continue to manage the area proactively. Over the years we’ve restored and maintained habitats and have planted thousands of trees.”

Cullimore heritage lies in transport

Quarrying might make up a quarter of the Cullimore Group’s work, but the company’s heritage lies in transport, and last year Moreton was made the youngest ever chairman of the national Road Haulage Association, a role that he proudly accepted after his father, Roger, in his time had given many years of his life to the association.

But it’s a tough gig to take on as the road haulage sector battles with rising fuel prices, Brexit, a lack of HGV drivers and ongoing supply chain problems.

“Around 97 per cent of what we all consume is transported at least once in its product lifecycle by truck,” said Moreton.

“If the transport world has increasing costs, the end users pay and it impacts inflation. It’s understandable that the government wants people to use less diesel and petrol, we all do, but there is currently no realistic alternative to diesel for SME businesses such as ours.”

Cullimores has 60 trucks on the public roads. A new diesel truck costs around £150,000, a hydrogen-fuelled truck is around £450,000. While an electric truck costs less, perhaps around £250,000, it will only get to midday before needing a lengthy recharge.

“We would need two and a half electric trucks to do the job of one diesel one,” said Moreton. “And while some companies are using biofuels, it’s still not a costeffective alternative.”

From sport to Central America, and finally the family business

Moreton joined the family business in his late 20s. Despite being very happy in his career choice now, he initially fought hard against his destiny.

“My father was an only child. I’m an only child. Mum watched how hard dad worked and suggested I should think about something else. I was never a massive academic at school. I went to Wycliffe College in Stroud, and Beaudesert before that. Those schools gave me focus because I was more motivated being outside building dens than learning my times tables.”

But he went to university, completing a degree in business and management at Sheffield Hallam, where his passion for rugby and sport saw him become chairman of the university’s rugby club.

“I’d always played rugby and at six feet two, I am a big guy so people have always tended to look to me for leadership.”

However, even with a degree under his belt, he wasn’t keen to commit full-time to the family business, but he did spend a year helping his father on specific projects.

After 12 months he took a post-graduate degree in sport at the (now), University of Gloucestershire and began working for Sport England and UK Sport, coaching rugby and elite sports.

His final hurrah before joining the family business was six months’ travelling around Central and South America. “It was incredible. I visited Mayan pyramids, Easter Island and followed the Inca Trail – the experience forced me to grow up.”

Moreton now recognises that he’d needed that separation time to believe in himself as an individual. “I’d grown up as the only son of a traditional family business, living a semi-rural lifestyle with a lot of attention on me. I was in and around the business, its trucks and the farm all the time. Our milk was dropped off daily in a churn, straight from our cows. If my parents were away, a member of staff would drop me off at school. Despite having spent three years at university, my six months overseas was what I needed to cut my own teeth.”

Moreton returned to finally join the business and over the last 20 years he’s innovated and diversified to help it grow. But he admits it’s not been easy.

The last 10 years have been about survival

“The last 10 years have been about survival: the credit crunch, Brexit, Covid and now the Ukraine war. In dad’s era it was boom or bust, often five good years, five less good years. Now we have a lot of curved balls all coming together.

“Being classed as an SME business is tough. We have all the financial responsibilities of a big business with the numbers of quite a small business and that’s an ongoing challenge.

“However, I was lucky to be handed a financially stable business and everything here is owned by us. We are custodians of everything – our land, the trucks –everything. We are an old school business, where service and reliability is key, but I know that to grow we need to think wider.”

Most recently that has seen the company invest more than £100,000 in a new fabrication operation at its Frampton-onSevern facility. This has included new welding equipment and a plasma cutter which allows his four-strong welding team to undertake bespoke metal working.

“As long as it’s metal we can make, fold and design pretty much anything, from garden railings to fuel tanks and automotive body parts.

“We are also an approved MOT station on vehicles of anything from 3.5 tonne upwards, including horseboxes and big trucks.”

Despite his early reticence Moreton admits that he now lives and breathes the business.

Agricultural innovation to develop a new wagyu herd

Three years ago, he also took on the Group’s farming activities, after his longstanding farm manager retired, and he’s applying his innovative ideas here too, developing the beef herd and introducing a wagyu herd.

“We are lucky if we make £100 a cow on our beef herd. But over the last couple of years we’ve been working on producing our own blood line and creating our own beef wagyu herd, which we can potentially sell for more. With all our cows eating our grass, wheat or barley, it’s also about lower food miles.

“I’m a bit of a foodie and it will be nice to have some full wagyu product on the farm. It’s not high volume but it gives us another income stream and it’s a really cool product.”

Since Moreton took over the family farm, he’s secured the Red Tractor food accreditation and is redeveloping some of the buildings.

Ten years ago I knew little about farming –now I’m really enjoying it.”

Reaching the magical 100 years in business

So what about the future? Moreton says it’s not about national expansion. “The further a product travels in a truck the more expensive it becomes, and there’s enough work for us in and around Gloucestershire and our near neighbours without going much further afield.”

It’s more about reaching that magical 100 years in business.

“I want to get to that landmark. I never met my grandfather, the original Moreton, but I want to be able to celebrate his legacy, as well as that of my father.”

He’s also aware that quite often a family business doesn’t get beyond the third generation and he wants to prove that old trope wrong.

“Yes, it’s been far more challenging than I thought it would be, but we are one of very few independents in a sector full of national and international businesses, and that’s worth celebrating.

“The last few years has been tough, but out of it I have learned some big lessons. My greatest challenge here isn’t just about being the managing director. I have a responsibility to encourage and nurture people and over the last few years many have reached out to me for guidance, perhaps because the business is seen as a respectful brand in the community. We don’t cut corners and we try to do things well.”

“Our growth is not necessarily on our profit and loss sheet but in more innovative ways of doing business. Getting that right is what I see as my legacy.”